We're Doing This
by RoyallyFamiliar
Summary: Third Person Limited with focus on Hermione as she adjusts to life after the war  including her now-official relationship with Ron , and the tying-up of all the loose ends.  All canon ships and post-book canon provided by JK Rowling. MA for future content
1. Prologue

Harsh golden light pounded at Hermione's eyelids, demanding she flutter them open. Moaning, she tried to turn out of the way, only to find that there was a person's shoulder in the way. Opening her eyes, she found herself crooked between the shoulder and chest of someone wearing a very familiar maroon and orange striped t-shirt. Her breath caught in her chest and her eyes flickered up to see Ronald Weasley's face, sleeping gently with his head crooked over on the sofa where her head had been.

Hermione blushed. After the battle they had all stayed awake just long enough to gather the wounded and dead and establish shifts for people to watch over those in the Great Hall and shifts for others to patrol the castle (though all knew they were safe) before they all scattered through the ruins of the castle to allow exhaustion to overtake them. Hermione, Ron, Harry and Ginny had gone up to what was left of Gryffindor Tower, Harry and Ginny in the armchair and Ron and Hermione on the sofa.

She and Ron hadn't talked about kissing. Of course they hadn't, Hermione thought with a wry smile. They never talked about _anything_. Ron had never stopped holding her, and his arm was still wrapped around her, but he never addressed what had happened.

Or how he felt about it.

She felt stupid. This was years in the making, right? Well, it was for her.

But she was also the one who had kissed him. He didn't exactly have any say in the matter.

Hermione sighed, extracting herself from Ron's arm. She couldn't just sit there, waiting for him to wake up. Slowly she stood and began to walk, not sure where she would go. She climbed through the portrait hole and walked down the curling staircase until a large gaping hole in the tower was revealed to her. She sat, her toes inches from the hole in the floor, her eyes falling on the sunset visible in front of her.

Not long after she had been sitting there, she heard familiar scuffling footsteps behind her, stopping not long behind her. She pursed her lips and looked down, waiting for Ron to speak.

"Why'd you leave?"

"You were asleep." She turned and glanced up at him. He looked scared.

"You leaving woke me up." He said, his chest heaving and his mouth slightly open. "Can I sit?" He asked, shuffling his feet.

"Sorry." She said, nodding to the floor. He sat next to her, his feet dangling over the edge.

"Hermione?" He asked, and she looked at him again, biting her bottom lip. "Are we going to do this?" He asked, his bottom eyelids creeping up on his eyes like shields.

"I want us to." She whispered. "If it's what you want, Ron."

"I really do, Hermione." He said, his voice hanging on her name. Gently he leaned in, taking her in his arms and looking in her eyes and heaving a few nervous breaths before pressing his lips to hers softly, gently. The way she had always imagined their first kiss.

"We're really doing this, Hermione." He said as they broke apart, giving her a soft smile.

"Finally." She said, allowing herself a little laugh as she snuggled down into his side, her heart beating quickly as she realized just how much this meant.


	2. Chapter 1: The Hard Part

"Harry, have you seen Ron?" Hermione asked, standing at the railing of her room's floor in the Burrow. Harry, a floor above, looked down.

"I assumed he was with you." Harry said, glancing up to Ron's floor as though to see him up there. Hermione shook her head.

"I haven't seen him since lunch. He can't have gone out in this rain, could he?" She said, glancing back through her room, out into the pouring rain surrounding the Burrow.

"He went out with George this morning. He won't have gone twice." Harry tried to reason, running a hand through his hair. Hermione sighed.

Ron was doing a lot of odd things lately.

Well, "odd" was a rather harsh way of putting it. He was grieving, all the Weasleys were, and Hermione and Harry as well. But other than George and Mrs. Weasley, Ron was taking it the hardest.

They had buried Fred over a week ago, the day after the battle. It was attended by many from the Order and Hogwarts alike. The same day as they buried Fred, they attended Remus and Tonks' joint funeral. It was a much quieter affair, coupled with the bittersweet meeting of Harry's godson Teddy.

The entire week had been a blur of funerals and ceremonies for those whose bodies hadn't been recovered. The week ended with a ceremony at Hogwarts that doubled as the resealing of Dumbledore's tomb and the installation of a monument to those lost.

Only the past week had they been allowed time for habit to creep in.

George was spending most of his time in his room, across the staircase from where Hermione was staying in Percy's room. She could hear him in there from time to time, but it was an entirely more quiet experience than any she had ever had at the Burrow. She didn't like it.

Mrs. Weasley had taken to disappearing during the day as well, but she didn't neglect them. Every morning when they went downstairs breakfast was ready, and looking out at Fred's tombstone out in the field Hermione could always spot fresh lilies on the grave. Lunch and dinner would also always be served, and Mrs. Weasley did stick around to eat dinner with the family and to spend time together after. Hermione worried that she was losing a bit of weight, but by the look in Mrs. Weasley's eyes Hermione could tell she would get through this.

And then there was Ron. Like all the Weasleys, Ron was quiet, but he was also trying to accomplish things. The time Mrs. Weasley forgot to make lunch, Ron started making it before Ginny could even offer. The time Mrs. Weasley forgot to feed the two chickens that had survived on their own in the yard, Ron fed them. When his father left his muggle objects out in the yard, Ron picked them up and put them back in the shed so they wouldn't get rained on. He made sure the broom chest got locked.

He did all of these in the tense, almost angry way he had done everything while on the run with Voldemort. The only differences were that this time his moods didn't peak as much as when he was wearing the locket, and once in a while he would relax and give Hermione tender looks that almost made her heart burst.

"I'm going down to Ginny's room. If you don't find him in half an hour, come down and we'll send a note with Cliodhna." Harry said\. The day before yesterday Harry had gone to Diagon Alley and bought Ginny a cream-colored owl as a Sorry I Missed Your Birthday and Christmas and Making You Think I Was Dead During the Battle present, and she had named the owl Cliodhna. Ron broke his moody stance to smile and tell Harry that he definitely should not allow Ginny to name any future children. Ginny had broken her recently acquired gentle demeanor with her brother to throw a book at him.

"Okay." Hermione said, nodding as Harry started to walk down the stairs, passing her floor in turn as he went down to the first floor landing and knocked on Ginny's door. Hermione could hear Ginny yelling something at him as he went in and smiled. She would find Ginny and Harry's new way of getting along hilarious if it weren't for how seriously Harry was taking it.

Ginny had been absolutely livid with Harry after the battle, so much that she only consented to sleep next to him with a half-sarcastic demand for a promise that he "wouldn't go off and act dead again." Harry had just held her tighter then, but that night he, Ron and Hermione filled Ginny in on all that had happened.

And when Harry mentioned that he had passed her on his way to die and hadn't bothered to say anything to her, Ginny actually slapped him. Hard. Hermione had watched her closely, knowing that if Ginny dared cry, she and Ron had better leave the two of them alone quickly. But she didn't cry, and she continued to flip between being huffy with Harry and basically attacking him with affection.

The most illustrative event of this new relation was one evening when the four of them were up late in the sitting room. Ginny started picking at Harry and as soon as he looked at her and stopped trying to fight back, Ginny had pounced on him with kisses.

Ron had stared dumbfounded at them until they stopped and went back to casually sitting next to each other, Harry eyeing Ginny from time to time as though waiting for a time bomb.

Ron had turned to Hermione and muttered, "Why don't you ever do that when we fight?" Hermione had only rolled her eyes and blushed, and soon it was too awkward for the four of them, so they each retired to their own rooms and pretended to be asleep.

Hermione was so lost in thought that she didn't hear the trudging on the steps until Ron walked right in front of her on the staircase.

"Hey." He said quietly, walking around to her. His red hair was wet, and there were drops of water on his shirt, but he didn't look like he had spent prolonged time in the rain.

"Hey." She replied, just as softly while he took he came up behind her, putting his chin on her shoulder delicately. "Where've you been?"

"Promise you won't get mad?" He asked, reaching and taking both of her hands in his.

"No." She said frankly, and he let out a breath that was almost like a laugh.

"I've been out to see Lavender. I got a note from Parvati that she's taken a turn for the worse, and I felt like I had to go." Ron said, bracing himself. Hermione sighed, turning around and holding onto his forearms as she looked up at him.

"How bad is she?" Hermione asked quietly.

"Pretty bad, but still awake. They still think she can make it." Hermione nodded.

"You don't have to feel guilty about going to see her, you know." Hermione said gently.

"I just… I know I haven't been… that I've been distant lately. And I don't want you to think that it's because of her." He said, and Hermione brushed a wet strand of hair off of his forehead.

"I know." She said, and he kissed her on the forehead.

"When's it going to get easier, Hermione?" He asked, resting his head on hers. "I want to be able to be happy. I want to be able to focus on having you. I want to move on."

"It'll come in time, you know it will." She soothed, nestling against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her. "We're at the hard part now, I suppose."

"I suppose. It's odd not having to worry all the time, isn't it?" He mused. She nodded.

"I always freak out a little bit when one of you isn't around. It's like this awareness settled in."

"Well, you know where I am." Ron said, a bit of his old tone in his voice. "And from the sound of it when I came up, Harry's in Ginny's room getting yelled at for dying again."

"Well that means they're making out by now." Hermione said, grinning. "He does know she's just upset that he didn't tell her, right?"

"Yeah. He thinks she'll get over it soon, so he's just waiting it out and repeating the apologies." Ron said. Hermione rolled her eyes.

"She's going to hold this over him until the next time he dies."

"Yup. Hmm… Mum actually came out and made some cookies this morning. How about we summon some and go up to my room?" Ron asked, looking down at her. Hermione smiled; Ron's moodiness meant that she rarely got the chance to just lay in Ron's arms and cuddle in the way they had only just realized was so nice.

"Okay." She said, and the two ascended the stairs hand in hand.

**Author's Note: Hey, guys! Sorry this chapter took me so long. I was probably a little premature in posting the first one, as I spend most of my writing time on my Glee story since it has more of a time frame, and I'm still working the plotlines out in my head for this one. Sorry if the chapters are a little spread out for a while. But I hope you enjoy this chapter… and I promise they'll get longer as the story goes on :)**


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